I'm delighted to announce that the PSC has achieved an agreement with CUNY to implement a permanent reduction in the full-time faculty teaching load, to be phased in starting next fall. By Fall 2020 the contractual teaching load for professors, associate professors and assistant professors at the senior colleges will be 18 hours; and the contractual teaching load for professors, associate professors and assistant professors at the community colleges, as well as for instructors and lectures, will be 24 hours. The joint announcement is below.

This is a historic achievement for the union and a major gain for CUNY and our students. It was possible only because the union insisted that we would not sign the last contract without a conceptual agreement and because union members organized and stayed strong in support. Congratulations to the many, many people who were part of making this happen.

Details will follow next week; we are just signing the agreement today. Congratulations, PSC members!

Barbara Bowen
President, PSC

CUNY AND PSC REACH AGREEMENT ON TEACHING WORKLOAD

The City University of New York and Professional Staff Congress have reached agreement on a restructuring of the workload of full-time teaching faculty that will enable professors to devote more time to individual work with students, to advising, holding office hours, conducting academic research and engaging in other activities that contribute to student success.

The agreement reduces the annual contractual undergraduate teaching workload by three credit hours and will be phased in over three years, one credit hour a year, starting with the 2018-19 academic year. The agreement covers both the senior and community colleges of CUNY and all full-time classroom teaching faculty.

The U.S. Congress will vote within a matter of days on a tax bill that amounts to a declaration of war on everyone but the very rich. It is not an exaggeration to call the Republicans’ tax bill a form of class war. Working people, the poor, the disabled, the elderly, the young and the sick—all will be robbed of resources in a direct transfer of wealth to the corporate sector and the richest tenth of one percent.

The bill can still be stopped. The Senate and House versions of the bill still have to be reconciled, and then the new bill must be passed by both houses.
You can play an important role in trying to stop the bill.

The PSC has arranged for members to call and text other union members who live in electoral districts where the Republican Congressperson could be pressed by constituents to change his or her vote and oppose the bill. We will be calling and texting from the union office in lower Manhattan. Sign up here.

With our union contract four days expired, hundreds of PSC members kicked off an energetic contract campaign tonight in midtown. The kick-off—a press conference, rallies at two CUNY campuses, disruptions of the CUNY Board of Trustees meeting, a lighted march, and a 25-foot light-up sign—pressed the CUNY trustees to negotiate an agreement that protects CUNY quality and helps students to succeed.

All of New York has a stake in the success of CUNY students. Elected officials, labor leaders and community leaders who represent and serve New Yorkers who depend on CUNY showed their support